Despite spending millions on education benefits, companies rarely track results

Key Insight: Discover how tying education benefits to workforce strategy drives measurable performance gains.
What's at Stake: Misaligned benefits risk wasting millions and eroding internal mobility amid AI-driven skill shifts.
Forward Look: Prepare for AI-driven reskilling as firms increase AI budgets but underutilize education benefits.
Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

Companies spend millions of dollars every year on education benefits, but few are closely measuring whether those programs deliver results, according to a new report.

Seventy percent of employers have defined key performance indicators for those investments, but just 13% conduct standardized recurring reporting, Guild's Building Workforce Adaptability with Education Benefits Report found.

More than half of organizations surveyed spend at least $1 million annually on education benefits, while nearly one in four invests $5 million or more.

"What this research makes clear is that there is a real gap between perception and performance," Bijal Shah, CEO of education benefits platform Guild, said in a statement. "The issue is often rooted in benefit design. High-performing programs align stakeholders on strategy, remove barriers to access, and connect learning directly to business needs. They continuously adapt based on results. That is how existing investment becomes a true engine for mobility, resilience and growth."

Sharing ROI

The Guild report is based on a March survey of 178 human resources, total rewards and learning and development leaders at 142 large employers with at least 4,000 workers across industries including healthcare, retail, manufacturing and financial services. 

The education benefit programs were evaluated by their impact in seven business outcomes including retention, internal mobility, workforce skill-readiness and time-to-fill. The survey revealed that high-performing programs, regardless of budget, are designed to drive workforce strategy, while low-performing ones optimize for participation.

Nearly all high-performing programs regularly share metrics with senior leadership (97%), while about 30% of low-performing programs share results only when asked or not at all. 

When education benefits are tied to workforce needs and broader business goals, executives are more likely to see them as something worth investing in and expanding. Over the past two years, 82% of high-performing programs saw their overall budget increase, roughly twice the rate of low-performing programs (41%).

"With budgets tight and the pressure to prove value higher than ever, most organizations are sitting on an underutilized investment that could be doing far more: tuition reimbursement programs," David Landman, founder of HR Elevate and former global head of talent development at Goldman Sachs, said in a statement. 

"The highest-performing organizations are using these benefits to deliberately build workforce readiness, accelerate internal mobility, and address the capability shifts AI is exposing. The path forward doesn't always require a new budget line."

A 'missed opportunity' with AI

Most companies are increasing their AI investments, with 92% planning to do so over the next three years, according to a 2025 McKinsey & Co. report. However, education benefits are rarely being used to build capability for the technology. Across performance levels, just 16% of survey respondents ranked AI readiness as a strategic use case for education benefits. 

Organizations that do prioritize AI readiness are much more likely to view technical training as a workforce strategy decision rather than just an HR function. In those companies, 92% treat technical training as a strategic workforce tool, compared with 77% of organizations that don't prioritize AI readiness. 

They are also more likely to say education benefits have become more important for building critical skills for current roles in the last three years. 

Matthew J. Daniel, senior principal of talent strategy at Guild, said AI is reshaping work in ways not seen since the dot-com era and the rise of social media — and the pace is only accelerating. 

"Employers have a responsibility to equip their people with the tools and training to meet these new demands," he said. "They have a significant budget set aside for education via tuition reimbursement, and the case for doing it through education benefits is strong, yet it's not being prioritized for most companies."